


paint a quiet evening pale

by fishlette



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Female Bilbo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-12 21:39:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1201588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishlette/pseuds/fishlette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <sub>From hobbit-kink: After BOTFA Thorin begs for Bilbo's forgiveness, and Bilbo makes him wait a long while for it.</sub></p>
<p>“Hello,” she says, greets him as though he were the post man on his delivery rounds, like they were no more than acquaintances passing each other in the old market square, <i>like he never tore her heart out of her chest.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	paint a quiet evening pale

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fill for [this prompt](http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/10731.html?thread=22105579#t22105579) on hobbit-kink.

When Billa is born and the midwife tells Belladonna she will never bear another child, Bag End is besieged with marriage proposals and well-wishers willing to ensure the fauntling a secure future.  
  
“Keep your sons,” Belladonna declares from the head of her sickbed, raised above the gaggle of visitors like a throne. “I look forward to watching them kneel at my daughter’s feet.”  
  
And they do.  
  
..  
  
Billa Baggins is young and beautiful and vain, with a procession of suitors trailing after her as she swoops through the Shire’s plush green hills. She is utterly enchanting, a pleasant creature who smiles sweetly and looks so guileless and perhaps this is why her casual dismissals are so devastating to the gentle Shire lads. She doesn’t mean to be cruel, not really, but breaking hearts is a natural Tookish habit and Bagginses owned pride in barrelfuls.  
  
“Oh sparrow,” Bungo says after he sends the heartsore boy away. “Whatever shall we do with you, prideful child?”  
  
“Keep me forever?” Billa chirps and pecks a kiss on her father’s cheek.  
  
..  
  
And later, after the Fell Winter comes and passes (in heavy boots with icy spikes, tearing up the fields, _oh how Farmer Maggot raged),_ Bungo’s sparrow daughter collects her tangled strands of pride and weaves herself an armoured net and wraps it tightly around her heart to keep the pieces together.  
  
..  
  
Thorin banishes her and Billa wonders if this will be her breaking point. She weeps into Gandalf’s shoulder, clutching at her chest and maybe if she presses hard enough her heart will stop cracking?  
  
She dreams that night of rolling hills and fireflies and Bungo in his old rocking chair blowing smoke rings at the floating lights.  
  
“What’s happened to my little sparrow hmm?” He pinches her chin fondly, “why am I wiping tears off your face?”  
  
“Oh papa!” She cries.  
  
She chatters the night away between hiccoughing sobs and Bungo helps her knit a new net, stronger, with teeth and steel bones.

“Where did you find these papa?”

“From your supply closet.”

“I had these in my supply closet?”

“You’ve always had them sparrow.”

 

* * *

 

Goldsickness is not a voice in his head or a fog in his mind, it is himself. It wears his face and speaks with his voice and it is him so completely he doesn’t realise it until he’s hanging over an abyss by a finger, the white warg’s maw stretching infinite below him. And suddenly Thorin wakes from his fever dream.  
  
“Billa!” He screams.  
  
..  
  
He searches the camps for her against Oin’s orders for bed rest, hobbling past Bard’s men and Thranduil’s guards, but no one will give him a straight answer. When finally exhaustion pushes him to his knees the Elvenking tells him, “you are unworthy of her, dwarf. Leave her be.”  
  
Thorin howls his grief.  
  
..  
  
He finds her behind a new door with a fresh coat of paint.  
  
“Hello,” she says, greets him as though he were the post man on his delivery rounds, like they were no more than acquaintances passing each other in the old market square, _like he never tore her heart out of her chest._  
  
“Billa,” he croaks, “I’m sorry.”  
  
She’s silent.  
  
..  
  
There’s a carefully wrapped bundle at the bottom of Thorin’s pack, beautiful little trinkets he bent out of wire and precious stones all crafted during their journey when he was still too stubborn to admit his affections. He leaves them on her doorstep, at her windowsills, tucked neatly into letters of apology.  
  
She returns them to him in a blush coloured box. Letters opened and refolded and unanswered.  
  
..  
  
He’s come around again, lurking just beyond the hedge while Billa works in her garden.  
  
“Are you sure this is safe Miss Billa?” Hamfast asks her and Billa laughs.  
  
“Yes sweet boy,” she pats his arm absentmindedly. Hamfast dares to glance past her shoulder and briefly meets a sullen glare.  
  
“If you’re sure,” he sighs.  
  
The dwarf is there again the next day and the day after that and Hamfast is torn between pity for the poor wretch and worry for his dearest Miss Billa.  
  
“Look,” he says to the dwarf one day as he’s leaving Bag End. “Whatever you have to say to her, just say it. If you’re too much of a coward to do even that then you should just go home.” Hamfast rushes past the dwarf and prays to Yavanna Miss Billa won’t be too angry at him.  
  
..  
  
Thorin’s palms are sweaty, the hollow in his chest is buzzing, fluttering like a hummingbird. “I love you,” he tells her and waits with bated breath, hopeful.  
  
“All right,” she says.  
  
“All right?” he repeats. She nods, moves to close the door. He grips the frame tightly. “No. No, you will give me answer,” he demands _(begs, pleads)._

“Please.” He drops his head on to her shoulder and heaves a shuddering breath, _“please.”_  
  
They stand there for a long time.


End file.
